The people's disdain of their own movement

[Karl Marx's Camel]

What do you think despite so many many years of struggle, the working class movement has in general not grown but actually have become weaker and weaker?

What do you think is the greatest single reason for the low interest/disdain of revolutionary politics in our society?
Personally I would have placed my lot on the failed leninist/stalinist experiments.

Any takers?

[coda]

in developed countries there is no broad dispersal of class consciousness as well as having substantial segments of populations finding it a satisfactory trade off to live under Capitalism.

in underdeveloped countries they don't yet have the means

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by NWOG+May 12, 2007 08:32 pm--> (NWOG @ May 12, 2007 08:32 pm)What do you think despite so many many years of struggle, the working class movement has in general not grown but actually have become weaker and weaker?
[/b]
I don't know what your view of growing weak is but in my observation it is recently getting stronger.



What do you think is the greatest single reason for the low interest/disdain of revolutionary politics in our society?


Which society you are speaking about ?


Personally I would have placed my lot on the failed leninist/stalinist experiments.

I don't know how Lenin who died some 80 years before could be the reason for your view of weakened class struggle.And also I don't understand what experiment did Lenin conduct.

As far as Stalin you are giving too much credit to him.


nya

in developed countries there is no broad dispersal of class consciousness as well as having substantial segments of populations finding it a satisfactory trade off to live under Capitalism.


in underdeveloped countries they don't yet have the means

What do you really mean by that ?

Until the people get class consciousness we should sit and wait for it to happen ?

Workers both in "developed" and "undeveloped" countries are fighting a lot. Just look at the workers actions sub forum within the politics forum. Go and join in those fights and raise the class consciousness of yourself. Don't sit in your home and wait for means or ends.

Class struggle is not a thing that will come from sky. It is happening daily. Workers are fighting capitalism in every nook and corner of the world. And victory will not come easily or quickly.

[coda]

<<What do you really mean by that ?
Until the people get class consciousness we should sit and wait for it to happen ?>>

Sit and wait for it to happen? no. not at all how did you ever get that from what i wrote? The question was why after so many years of struggle has not the movement grown?

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 11:33 pm
<<What do you really mean by that ?
Until the people get class consciousness we should sit and wait for it to happen ?>>

Sit and wait for it to happen? no. not at all how did you ever get that from what i wrote? The question was why after so many years of struggle has not the movement grown?
If you didn&#39;t mean it then I apologise.

But I still stand by the statement that worker&#39;s struggle is getting stronger day by day. It is no way weak as the Original Poster assumes.

[StartToday]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 12:55 pm
But I still stand by the statement that worker&#39;s struggle is getting stronger day by day. It is no way weak as the Original Poster assumes.
It is getting stronger where, and you draw your conclusion based on what information?

[ichneumon]

1)atheism
2)19th century philosophy based on the industrial age, which happens to be over
3)planning on overthrowing democracy and killing lots of people
3)communists are mean, nasty people
4)far leftists are often rebellious teens who want to stick it to the gov&#39;t cause they can&#39;t afford a Wii

:)

see, for may day, i&#39;d suggest having a nice little booth that gives out coffee and doughnuts to people in return for them telling where they work and how much it sucks. they can get little happy hammer-and-sickle-smiley face stickers, or talk to union reps.

we need PR. we need to be the shiny happy face of the new socialism. get with it.

[Karl Marx's Camel]

i&#39;d suggest having a nice little booth that gives out coffee and doughnuts to people in return for them telling where they work and how much it sucks. they can get little happy hammer-and-sickle-smiley face stickers, or talk to union reps.

we need PR. we need to be the shiny happy face of the new socialism. get with it.

Cute, but in my opinion think it give us the wrong image my friend. We are not a charity movement, or selling insurances..

Personal experience tells me these are the people who do these kinds of things, I mean setting up booths... I think we would be associated with such people if we did that. And I think booths are associated with "selfish agenda". Although I am sure it would be well meant, we are not here to "sell" something.

In my humble opinion I think setting up shelters for the homeless and so on would be better. Not because we think it would overthrow the system or anything but because it shows capitalism does not take care of people and it would be a living example of solidarity. It is not ideal but it is a start.

[JKP]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 12:10 pm

see, for may day, i&#39;d suggest having a nice little booth that gives out coffee and doughnuts to people in return for them telling where they work and how much it sucks. they can get little happy hammer-and-sickle-smiley face stickers, or talk to union reps.

we need PR. we need to be the shiny happy face of the new socialism. get with it.
I agree 100%

We need to come to terms with the fact that propaganda papers and trendy protests do not change anyone&#39;s view on leftism but on the contrary have only served to alienate people.

We really do need to do PR and marketing. It&#39;s not just the capitalists that do it, for instance, if there&#39;s a tuberculosis prevention campaign going on, they&#39;re going to target specific age and ethnic groups to make sure that when they start putting out radio and internet messages, it&#39;s going to be heard by people that it&#39;s actually relevant to.

It&#39;s about time we "get with the 21th century". We need to appropriate a powerful tool for our own.

[midnight marauder]

word.

to quote sister Assata Shakur,

"Making social change and social justice means people have to be more conscious across the board, inside and outside the movement, not only around race, but around class, sexism, the ecology, whatever. The methods of 1917, standing on a corner with leaflets, standing next to someone saying, "Workers of the world unite," won&#39;t work. We need to use alternative means of communication. The old ways of attaining consciousness aren&#39;t going to work. The little Leninist study groups won&#39;t do it. We need to use video, audio, the Internet. We also need to work on the basics of rebuilding community. How are you going to organize or liberate your community if you don&#39;t have one?"

[Rawthentic]

Thats very important for today, thanks for that JUICE.

[ichneumon]

how about just volunteering in soup-kitchen, homeless-shelter, whatever, but wearing the symbol? be *friendly*, not nutty. work really, really hard. do it often.

frankly, the news media will eat it up. if a bunch of people wearing red stars and hammer and sickles are helping say, hurricane victims, while the USgov is doing nothing, you can bet it will get air time. DC would go off like a roman candle. how funny&#33;

the whole "reject society and wait for the revolution" bit has to go. i would STRONGLY suggest cooperating with any and every other organization that is trying to help, including religious ones. helping the victims of oppression is just more important than screaming rabid political diatribes, no matter how good it makes you feel. the people you help will not forget. they will go and look stuff up.

[the-red-under-the-bed]

"Making social change and social justice means people have to be more conscious across the board, inside and outside the movement, not only around race, but around class, sexism, the ecology, whatever. The methods of 1917, standing on a corner with leaflets, standing next to someone saying, "Workers of the world unite," won&#39;t work. We need to use alternative means of communication. The old ways of attaining consciousness aren&#39;t going to work. The little Leninist study groups won&#39;t do it. We need to use video, audio, the Internet. We also need to work on the basics of rebuilding community. How are you going to organize or liberate your community if you don&#39;t have one?"

I&#39;m not sure if i agree 100% with this. I do to some extent, but not completly. We do NEED to use video, we do NEED to use radio, and we DEFINATELY NEED to use the internet, but i think we are using this as much as we can. There is allot of really good alternative film and literature out there. The problem is getting this to the people. You just cant walk into a commercial tv or radio station and get anything of real quality air time. Revolutionary media is not going to be played on commercial media outlets. Never going to happen. The stuff is there, the problem of this is getting that to people. The internet is an important part of this. ITs easy and accessable. In australia we are using the internet very affectively and the Green Left Weekly website conistantly is the nations most viewed political website.

I think the comment about rebuilding the community is a good one. To rebuild the community you need to ENGAGE the community. "standing on the corner" still has its place. It doesnt alienante the movement. Its important that we get out and talk to people about issues and get people thinking, and im sorry to say but we will struggle to do that from the revleft internet board. We need to get people asking questions and thinking about the big picture, and getting out and talking to people is the best way ive found to do that.


Just finally, if we want to build a good strong movement, WE NEED COMMITED AND PASSIONATE COMRADES&#33; NOT EVERYONE ON THIS BOARD IS PART OF A POLITCAL ORGANISATION AND ACTIVELY INVOLVED IN THE MOVEMENTS. IF YOUR GOING TO COME ON THIS SITE AND TALK THE TALK, GET OFF YOUR ARSE AND WALK THE WALK. GET INVOLVED, THE STRUGGLE NEEDS YOU&#33;

[Vargha Poralli]

Originally posted by StartToday+May 13, 2007 01:39 am--> (StartToday &#064; May 13, 2007 01:39 am)
[email protected] 12, 2007 12:55 pm
But I still stand by the statement that worker&#39;s struggle is getting stronger day by day. It is no way weak as the Original Poster assumes.
It is getting stronger where, and you draw your conclusion based on what information? [/b]
I must be wrong to speak for the whole world but the workers and down trodden have started to question things and fighting against the system in South Asia. India, Pakistan , Bangladesh, Nepal etc. The number of Strikes,Hartals,Road rokos etc are increasing in number for each monts. Of course these things don&#39;t have connection wih one another but they are severey related with one another. As communists we must take part in those sturugles and push the masses for united mass actions. Situation like February or Octiber don&#39;t fall from skies. They all arise from small and minor struggles .

And to add the riots in France after the elections.And in China too workers and peasants despite of the repression have started fighting against the CPC bureaucracy.

If you are measuring against the events like February,October or May these events are precursors to it. And as I have already mentioned I draw my conclusions based on information from worker&#39;s struggle subsection.

[bcbm]

frankly, the news media will eat it up. if a bunch of people wearing red stars and hammer and sickles are helping say, hurricane victims, while the USgov is doing nothing, you can bet it will get air time. DC would go off like a roman candle. how funny&#33;

How much media coverage did the massive outpouring of anarchist support and solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina get?

[which doctor]

Originally posted by black coffee black [email protected] 13, 2007 12:16 am

frankly, the news media will eat it up. if a bunch of people wearing red stars and hammer and sickles are helping say, hurricane victims, while the USgov is doing nothing, you can bet it will get air time. DC would go off like a roman candle. how funny&#33;

How much media coverage did the massive outpouring of anarchist support and solidarity with victims of Hurricane Katrina get?
Practically zero attention, though NPR did a little bit on them.

[which doctor]

Part of the "peoples&#39;" disdain for their own movement is that they don&#39;t feel it is their own movement. And for all intensive purposes, it isn&#39;t&#33; The working class movement has been hijacked by bureaucrats. Honestly, how many working-class people do you know that involved in radical proletarian orgs?

[bobroberts]

Antonio Gramsci had some theories on this.


Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the &#39;common sense&#39; values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Gramsci#Hegemony
http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/index.htm

[luxemburg89]

1)atheism
2)19th century philosophy based on the industrial age, which happens to be over
3)planning on overthrowing democracy and killing lots of people
3)communists are mean, nasty people
4)far leftists are often rebellious teens who want to stick it to the gov&#39;t cause they can&#39;t afford a Wii


number 3 in particular interests me. Was Picasso a mean, nasty person - cos i always thought he was a pacifist?

try replacing it with:

3) religious fanatics are twats, who like to believe that an old-aged pensioner was able to round up two of every animal (except fish but they can swim) and put them in a wooden boat for 40 days and 40 nights.

going back point 1) well all I have to say to that is that there is a reason you are a restricted member - you are an idiot.

Point 2) umm the bible - based on the roman era, which happens to be over.

4) I know you&#39;re stupid but let&#39;s give you a typical IQ test:

All christians are idiots, are, therefore, all idiots christians?



(the answer is no, only total morons are christians)

P.S. I think that Jazzratt summed it up when he told you to fuck off.

[Lark]

Originally posted by [email protected] 12, 2007 03:02 pm
What do you think despite so many many years of struggle, the working class movement has in general not grown but actually have become weaker and weaker?

What do you think is the greatest single reason for the low interest/disdain of revolutionary politics in our society?
Personally I would have placed my lot on the failed leninist/stalinist experiments.

Any takers?
The criticisms that Orwell made of socialists at the time of writing The Lion and The Unicorn are probably as relevent as when they were wrote.

Anthony Crosland also did a great take on why socialists were unpopular, would remain unpopular and couldnt ever get a grip on why they were unpopular in The Future of Socialism too.

[temp918273]

I place the blame on the massive system of social conditioning that exists throughout american society in addition to the artificial &#39;middle class&#39; that&#39;s subsidized by the capitalist state. It began as a conscious effort of spreading anti-communist propaganda and disinformation by the ruling class during the cold war. It has since become institutionalized within academia and the media accepted as &#39;the norm&#39;. Colleges and television are probably the biggest culprits.


This is all changing a little with the rise of the internet as a decentralized source of information but this may even be a short lived phenomenon. I don&#39;t think the trend will ever stop until the middle class starts rapidly disappearing due to the economic conditions brought about by globalization.